How can I found out which athletic/dietary supplements are safe?

[battleknight24]

There's a hell of lot of nutritional/athletic supplements out there... how can I find out which ones are safe and which ones are not? Should I just print out the basic information off the internet and consult my doctor?

Peace,

[toddzilla]

1. doctors generally know nothing about nutrition.

go to the library. or just buy some met-rx and be done with it. expensive, but by far the best athletic/nutritional supplement there is.

[battleknight24]

2. My doctor took nutritional classes in med school...

... he knows a little bit...

[battleknight24]

3. Have you heard of the supplement Adenergy?

Do you know anything about it?


Peace,

[toddzilla]

4. nope, sorry.

seriously, check out met-rx. i've used it in the past and it really does work by far the best. i've used many,many different supplements and it just seems to be the best deal, although it's expensive (2 bucks a packet or so)

g'night

[battleknight24]

5. I actually am using that already...

... its working really good... my friends say that I look a little bit leaner and muscular...

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

6. Simple

Do research.

Your doctor might have taken nutrition classes in med school 20 years ago, but the knowledge has increased 20 fold since then. Half the suppliments out there hadn't been bottled when he/she was likely in med school.

Go check out some bodybuilding boards. Those guys will test out anything to see if it works. If it's good or crap, they will know about it. They can also hook you up with some nutritional advice to go along with the supps.

Good luck

[ThatPoetGuy]

7. Ask.

In general it's better to choose a supplement that contains a single nutrient, that way you can tweak it to your satisfaction -- say, increase the protein or decrease the creatine.

I can't tell you about Adenergy -- I can't view Flash on this computer, so I wasn't able to watch their films. But I am deeply suspicious of any claim that you can administer adenine triphosphate orally and expect it to be transmitted directly to your twitch fibers.

As for Met-RX -- well, despite them brand-naming their protein combo, it's still nowhere near as good as straight whey protein extract. That "nowhere near as good" can cost you your kidneys; http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=948376 , check out my post in response to your question about protein powder.

Not to mention a ton of sugar in Met-RX, not to mention saturated fat. Not to mention cost and gooey consistency. Really it's just much wiser to take a fitness multivitamin and drink a super-high quality protein in your juice.

If you can tell me the ingredients in Adenergy I can give you my assessment.

[LondonAmerican]

8. It kind of depends on what you want to be taking them for

Fitness? Fat loss? Gaining muscle mass? It would be different supplements in each case and they have different effects.

Generally speaking, and putting aside media-generated hysteria, most of them are indeed safe.